Something has been bothering me and I haven't been able to put my finger on it. I hesitated writing this. By doing so, I fully understand that some will choose to twist or misinterpret my words to further instill doubt into the community.

Jrockowitz's recent blog post on crowd sourcing, found here, sparked so many ideas for me. I wanted to discuss the most prominent idea in this blog post, the idea for a company that nurtures community contributions.

Drupal has a full vocabulary of Drupalisms. While I think that is fine for Drupal-specific features, it also is a sign that we seem to promote our own island when there are similar concepts that exist in the technology space.

For a moment, may some of the hurt and fearful in the Drupal community take a moment to pause and reflect. Take a deep breath and slow down from the continuous retweeting, reddit posts, or the most recent Drupal Confessions.

When I was checking Twitter last night, a prominent community member posted a "TMI" message with a link to a blog post. This was totally off-character for a man regularly promoting thought leadership in technical capacities (why I was following him on Twitter).

Off the top of my head, I can name several "first"-based approaches. Do any of these ring a bell? Mobile first, content first, API first, user first, design first, experience first, modeling first, security first.

The Trump team has been saying they are victims from attacks of those on the left that don't want them in office. While it is fair to say that those in the left indeed don't want them in office, this is a direct response to their policies.

Why

When you are building a tool, how do you measure the success of your efforts? There are data driven approaches around adoption, like number of times your tool has been downloaded or installed. Similarly, success could be defined as how effectively you solved the problem.

I'm a big fan of Field Collections. It provides a high level of flexibility in setting up an auxiliary (and potentially shared) data structure that can associate with another entity. As such, it's a highly customizable way to do relational data in Drupal.

I recently made a pass through historic downtown Altoona and I noticed how many buildings appeared to be empty. It actually occurred to me that my definition of infrastructure has shifted radically from the conventional infrastructure companies have adopted.

I long struggled with how to effectively do local development in Drupal. Few would argue the merits of doing local development over working directly on a production system. While the problem seems straightforward, nothing seemed to work quite right.

The annual winter meetings have passed. A lot of GMs have been aggressive in spending or prioritizing their team's urgent needs. As usual, the Pirates were not big spenders nor would I consider them aggressive. This fits into their typical patient and cost-effective operations.

This evening, my daughter and I were playing doctor. I laid on the floor and she gave me a checkup. She looked at my ears. "Better". She checked my heartbeat. She nodded her head. And, lastly, she checked my temperature.

Generally speaking, I try to be very laid back. I do get stressed out (and continue to try to work on that). However, there is one major pet peeve of mine that I believe is worth sharing. Being present.

I am a big fan of learning moments. In business, some learning moments come at a cost. Some mistakes are easier to forgive than others. I still believe in exercising as much patience as possible to allow people to learn.

Drupal is definitely a framework enterprises can leverage. I think few would argue this. But, the term open source freaks out a lot of people. What it boils down to is how to best leverage this framework. This means that we as a community need to adopt best practices in how Drupal is used.

I was recently asked about what separates my company from others I have worked in the past. What immediately came to mind was the relationship with my team, the work we do, and the sheer talent. Those elements alone still make me get up in the morning.

Estimations suck. Seriously. To do estimations properly, it requires significant analysis and a sound grip on the full project scope. It's hard. There are always unknown complexities that creep up. Estimations set expectations and impose risk when complexity is not identified.

Recently, it hit me that there are actually benefits to having a short term memory. I don't think this is broadly applicable. In fact, I think there are more instances in which you do not want to have a short term memory. Allow me to explain...

Companies are very bottom line focused. Even after a high level scope of work is determined, the most appealing bids often are on the lower end. Even if some form of a deliverable can be achieved in a given number of hours, it often does not yield the correct one.

In a previous job, I had a boss that I really admired. He's near the end of his career and his experience had made him wise. He was humble, but would chime in as needed. One of my favorites was his ability to bust out short one-liners that would hit the nail on the head.

Preface

Nodes are the unquestioned most robust data structure within Drupal. It has widely adopted integration, e.g. Views, Features, Context, Rules, etc that make the Node a popular Drupal entity for countless use cases.

While most staff within a company focus on the bottom line, the bottom line is no guarantee of project success. It's impossible to look in your crystal ball and make this call before a project begins. Hindsight is 20/20, right?

The Coder module (http://drupal.org/project/coder) is well known for assisting developers in producing code up to snuff with the community defined standards. Such standards have been integral in helping the community grow in a consistent manner.

Much focus has been paid to Matt Niskanen or Simon Depres finding new towns. This is the most likely scenario, as Niskanen's youth and recent good play has surely garnered focus. His trade may be more likely, as Depres came to camp over weight.

Drupal is a complex and robust system. Due to all of the processing required to bootstrap Drupal, enabled modules, enabled themes, and page-specific rendering, one can imagine performance becomes a major concern.

To innovate, you often have to risk getting out of your comfort zone. The last several years, I have had varied needs which have required me to evaluate new text editors that offer more robust functionality.

Apple's release of new iPhones and iOS7 has been criticized for what analysts claim is a lack of innovation. Such things have been prevalent for years in Operating Systems, productivity software, tablets/mobile phones, etc.

You've heard it all before. "The old programmer did this and it's crap" or "This person used this tool and it's no good". It's the age old grudge match between the old and the new. And, it doesn't help anyone move forward.

If you spent hours solving a problem, what is the likelihood you will remember exactly what you did the next time it comes around? Don't solve the same problem twice. Find a way to automate routine tasks so you can focus on other challenges. What are some strategies used?